The Fox Summoner (Neglected fanfic)

31. The Howl Before the Storm...

The next following day for the team, they travelled through most of the day to the Howling Village. It took a while since they had to actually find the village from the locals in the land and ask around for the village location. One local pointed them in the right direction of three wolf shaped mountains that surrounded the Land of Medicine. In the center of those mountains, lies the village.

It took a while but they had finally reached the front gate of the village. It was giant, like Konoha's gate but this gate here was designed as a wolf's paw, living up to the village's name. Once the team got there, Team 12 casually walked to the gates in Hope's of entering but they were stopped by gate guards. "Hault! Name your business here!". Anko pulled out the mission scroll and spoke. "I am Anko Mitarashi. This is my team sent from Konoha for our mission in protecting your village from outside threats. May we speak with your village leader?".

One of the gate guards grew annoyed. "WHAT?! What is Okamikage-sama thinking? We can take care of this problem ourselves! Its totally under control!". Naruto took a good look inside the village and saw the damage. From the spot they were at, he can only see a few things and what he saw wasn't so good. Some establishments were in ruins and that was a good thing compared to others in his eye view as other things were just dust. People were in tents and were gravely injured.

The town looked a wreck and it wasn't funny at all. "This is it being under control? Jesus, I wonder what it's like when it goes to shit and we haven't even seen the rest of your village yet!" Naruto said before he was nudged by Yakumo's elbow. "Hey, we don't need outsiders like you. We've handled our problems by ourselves before, we'll do it again!". "Really? You'll stake your townspeople's lives on that statement?" Naruto started.

"He's right, you shouldn't be so quick to deny help when you're basically scrapping by as it is" Sayori spoke up. "Enough. Frankly, it's not up to you two and by what position you're in, I doubt they tell you two bozos squat! Now, just take us to your leader. They'll decide if our service is required or not" Anko said. The same feisty gate guard moved to argue but the other gate guard stopped him. "Stop Monmaru! There's no point in arguing when she's right, it's not up to us. Just watch the gate. Follow me, Konoha shinobi".

The man left with the shinobi following him, leaving an ultra pissed off gate guard behind. On their way to the Okamikage, following the gate guard, Sayori spoke. "What was his deal?". "Many of the people in the village don't particularly like shinobi all too well, especially outside shinobi considering our history with them. Many people lost families to outside shinobi during our war with Ame. They just don't trust outside or even just general shinobi anymore. Come on, Okamikage-sama should be in his office around this time".

While they were slowly making their way through the village, the team got an inside scoop of the village and it was truly pitiful. It was damn near complete destruction in the village. Buildings were basically rubble, homes were just as bad with people lying in the streets in tents with food and rations being handed out to the civilians and guards alike. It was like this village was on its last legs and if they were to be attacked again....

Speaking of the village, as the team passed by, the villagers weren't exactly too pleased to see them walking so casually in their village. It may be that they're on edge after the recent attack from the rouge shinobi or the fact that they just hate outsiders all together but either way, they were not fucking with the Konoha team what so ever. As they walked by, villagers were glaring hard at them, almost expecting them to die upon their glance.

'Warm welcome huh? Jeez, I feel like I personally attacked them myself. Like I pissed in their cereal or something'. 'You're telling me.....they ain't messing with us that's for sure. I'm pretty sure the reason why we're not tasting blue powder right now is because of the guard escorting us. Still, I feel kinda bad, them losing their homes, businesses and all. They didn't deserve it' Naruto replied. "Hey" Sayori started talking to the guard escorting the team.